affects.
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While youâre at it might you also write it in a full sentence and capitalize the word first. Thank you.
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The tracking point doesn t really count. All long range weapons have lower tracking then their short range counterparts, just look at Artillery vs autocannons. Small Beams have to much dps for sure atm
Iâm just going to say this and then slink out of this thread.
THEYâRE FRIKKINâ LASERS! THE BEAMS HAVE NO MASS!
There should be no tracking difference at all between pulse and beams. Really, when you think about it, until ships start swinging swords of differing sizes, there should be no tracking difference between any long and short range weapon in the same class.
It doesnât take much to track a fire hose with the same speed and precision as you would a garden hose. Range of the weapon simply shouldnât factor into the DPS equation. Though actual range should.
Mr Epeen 
Tracking is not only the time it takes for the particle to reach the target it is the accuracy of the motion prediction software on the guns to move the mechanics of the weapon to the right spot and fire, the gun rotation is not instant and hence has tracking issues :].
If you add in charge time for a beam compared to pulse then thatâs even more delay added to the calculation and then there is more recoil so greater chance to miss because of all that burst force.
I would say a garden hose is a lot easier to keep on target xD
Star Trek TNG explanations and justifications.
The tracking is exactly as fast as you can move a mirror. And you can use exactly the same mirror to aim a beam or a pulse.
Now, if you are talking something that shoots a physical object, you can make an argument for the mass required to shoot a larger projectile slowing the tracking but you canât do that for a laser. The only thing that moves in a (proper weapons grade) laser is the mirror reflecting where you want the beam to go.
Else youâll die trying to swing the twelve tons of actual equipment needed to make the beam at a snails pace . Might as well go back to aiming by pointing your entire ship at your target But I suspect that the EVE factions have advanced somewhat since WW 2 Earth mobile weapons.
Now Iâm really going to slink back out of here. No. Really.
Mr Epeen 
Actually, when you look at the damage formula then youâll see itâs just a series of 0.5-multiplications, because itâs based on the function of 0.5^x. When you then look at the factors in the formula, i.e. what happens at the falloff, then youâll see that this game is build on chances and not on actual physics. At the falloff do you get a fair 1:1-chance to hit or miss (itâs always 50% at the falloff distance). This chance then is modified by factors such as range and tracking and weapon-vs-ship signature, which creates the illusion of âspace physicsâ. In shorts, itâs an approximation.
And 
you make it sound like you just solved the universe, a pulse laser will project less force than a beam hence it would require a much more light weight mirror which is quicker to adjust
Not sure if joking.
Mr Epeen
One would not joke about such serious matters as internet spaceships
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There are two or three things in effet here ; Iâll explain.
First, the generalisation : we use to say that short range = high damage and long range = low damage. That is mainly true because of tracking, but in practice itâs a quick generalisation that does not accound for weapons specifities, and as said it also hide the importance of tracking in the matter.
Second, weapons are not all the same : hybrid weapons are indeed as anyone would expect. Projectiles actualy go farther in this trope because artillery trade tracking and dps for raw damage (alpha). For lasers, itâs a bit more complicated. First, the high tracking laser is actualy the lower beam of each class, which have better tracking but lower dps than the pulses that follow. And then come the actual beam (with beam in the name), with longer range but lower tracking.
Third, there was in a distant past the medium LR weapon buff. MLR weapons have a complicated niche in the meta and werenât used, so CCP tweaked them a but : they got more damage but less tracking. This way they would be able to compete with large guns with their dps without replacing medium SR turrets because of their tracking. I leave you do the maths, but eventhough the paper dps doesnât look like it, when considering the tracking MLR guns are still â â â â at short range indeed.
Which place medium lasers in a very counter intuitive place : the better tracking weapon is a beam with low dps and beyond point range reach ; then come pulse with decent tracking, dps, and still point range weapons ; and finaly the medium beam for longer than point range.
There was indeed another buff for beam weapons at a latter stage, but it didnât changed this as far as I remember.
The balance is tight because medium beam must have the highest dps of MLR weapons, be not too far for railgun to have a point, and not too much for medium arty alpha to be relevant.
Actualy you can consider that beam needs better mirrors than pulses in order to keep the beam dispersion in check over longer distances. I heard Ligo and Virgo mirrors that reflect a laser beam over 70km require a surface curvature with atom precision to keep the beam right.
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Cool info, bro.
But WTF does it have to do with the speed a mirror can be moved? The only thing that matters in the context of this discussion is tracking speed. So âexactly the same mirrorâ in what you quoted refers to its mass, not surface.
Edit: From Mr Epeenâs Rules of Posting Etiquette: Never start a reply with the word âActuallyâ unless you sincerely want to be seen as the forum pedant.
Mr Epeen
theres an idiosyncrasy with beams.
on frigates and battleships pulse are higher damage,
heavy beams at the cruiser/bc level do more damage than their heavy pulse counterparts. not sure why.
but with a tech 2 rof rig and drones you can get a heavy beam harbinger up to 1000dps for pretty cheap using imperial multifrequency. (less than like 100m) itll be squishy but heavy beams have huge damage.
then once youre up into large turrets the dual heavy beam and tachyon beams just absolutely such compared to the mega pulses.
More to guns than DPS. There is more to actual facts than EFT. Get out of EFT and play the game. There is a huge difference between Beams and Pulses, and itâs not the damage.
In almost all cases, Pulses normally have higher DPS than Beams regardless of what the DPS counter says.
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Well, obviously, better means bigger⌠Donât you know the size of the Virgo or Ligo platforms ?
Actualy it fits me pretty well. 
Obviously you havenât killed a T3C in a taranis before 
bigger is just juicier not better.
Iâve not done the maths, but one critical difference is the capacitor usage. Looking at the raw cycle times and cap usage for Mega Beam and Mega Pulse, the pulse lasers appear to be more cap efficient.
This is an important factor given that what an Energy Turret does is basically convert your capacitor to damage on target. The Beam may do similar or more damage, but is limited by capacitor, so over time, the Pulse variants do more damage as the Beams depleat the capacitor.
Does this make sense?
try with standard lens instead.
BTW did you know the civilian AB have a much better cap consumption ?
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No different from what I said almost all cases, the difference being heavy beams.
In that instance youâre just trading track for range. And at long range tracking doesnât mean as much in the same way long range doesnât mean much at close range.
Nobody here wants to talk about locked in damage types?
I want to disagree with tracking being the factor here because if weâre both shooting at our optimal the beam will have a 30km range where tracking wonât be an issue. Although you could argue that its outside of point range which means you get all that damage but canât hold the target down so what do I know.
Even pre buff, they looked too cool to pass up
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